Talks to revive Iran nuclear deal set to restart within days

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(Bloomberg) – Iran’s talks aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal with the United States will resume in the “coming days”, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell Fontelles has said.

“We will resume talks on the JCPOA in the coming days, and the coming days mean the coming days. I mean, quickly, immediately,” Borrell said during a televised press conference with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian in Tehran. The talks in Vienna are facilitated by the EU, with indirect participation from the United States.

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Negotiations were abruptly suspended in March after a year of erratic efforts to salvage the deal. The 2015 pact imposed restrictions on Iran’s atomic activities in exchange for easing some economic sanctions. President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the deal in 2018, and reviving the deal could see a flood of Iranian oil return to world markets and provide some relief from soaring prices. crude.

Negotiations “need to be completed, three months have passed,” Borrell said.

One of the main sticking points has been Iran’s demand that the United States drop the designation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization.

Iranian Amirabdollahian reiterated his call for the Biden administration to take a “realistic and fair” approach to help reach a deal.

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Read more: How an Iran nuclear deal could affect oil, trade and security

World powers are eager to seal a return to the deal because, unconstrained, Iranian engineers have elevated the country’s ability to rapidly enrich uranium to levels close to what would be needed for a nuclear weapon. The country has always maintained that its atomic program was peaceful, but the 2015 deal was struck amid suspicions over that claim.

The withdrawal of the United States from the Iran agreement has increased tensions between the countries. More radical leaders have since seized power in Tehran and there have been a series of ship and drone attacks in the Persian Gulf that have rattled energy markets and at times pushed the two countries to the brink of a military conflict.

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